


And Many Returns

by Ryo Hoshi (Hoshi_Ryo)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Existentialism, Gen, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Philosophy, Post-Sburb/Sgrub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:22:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3169673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoshi_Ryo/pseuds/Ryo%20Hoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Game is over and Lord English is defeated, Jade and Calliope form a plan to restore the dreambubbles by asking the HorrorTerrors.  Rose is skeptical, and Aradia is just along for the adventure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Many Returns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [light_rises](https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_rises/gifts).



> This gets rather philosophical, particularly in the eschatological field. I did my best to keep it away from darkfic, and...well, it's in weird places instead, I suspect.

        It took a while after the Game ended for the dust to settle, and their plan to settle out.  Lord English’s rampage across Paradox Space had taken out so many dreambubbles; Rose said she felt certain that not _all_ of them had been destroyed, but…  None of them had seen a dreambubble, neither while awake nor while asleep, since around that time.

        That didn’t mean they were all gone, and their dead friends as well, of course.  There was always the chance that a few dreambubbles had survived in obscure corners of Paradox Space, out of their usual reach, even while asleep.

        Jade had been the main one pushing for it, confident that between her powers as the Witch and Calliope’s as the Muse of Space, they could find those bubbles.

        Rose had been the main skeptic.  Even if their friends had survived, somehow, those bubbles were certain to be small and if all their dead friends had survived they would be crowded…

        The plan evolved, and Rose found herself drawn in deeper than she had intended: They would ask the HorrorTerrors to bring back the destroyed dreambubbles.

 

        Aradia had grinned when they asked her, and said aloud what Rose suspected and dared not say, for Jade was eager and the plan meant so much to her:

        The dead are dead, the double-dead equally so, and it was for the best.

        She had shrugged, though.

        It might be, in her opinion, futile but it did sound like an adventure.

 

        Rose hung back a little, not wanting her skepticism and doubts to shade Jade’s bright and shiny hopes.

        Their group was of Light and Space and Time, Hopeless and Voidless.

        She could See through the void, though, and with Space and Time it was perhaps even possible to search.

        It was not, she had to admit, certain to fail.

        She merely did not think it was likely to succeed.

 

        How long they spent travelling meant little enough to them, now.  The important part was to out how bad the damage was, if there were any dreambubbles left at all.

        It had taken all of them working together, and even Aradia felt it was an accomplishment in and of itself.  The last dreambubble was not large, but not crowded either, idly floating along near the edges, not as much hidden as simply out of the way and forgotten.

        They slipped in, curious and eager to see whom they might recruit.

 

        They found what seemed to be alpha Feferi sitting in a field that seemed to stretch out for infinity, even with its definite bounds.  She was having a picnic, with what looked to be adult versions of Rose and Jade, waving excitedly as she saw them, blank dead white eyes directed straight at them.

        The Jade with her grinned, face old and wrinkled but teeth still white and for someone who had never been combined with a dog surprisingly sharp.  “Hey there, whippersnappers!”

        The Rose sighed, in an elegant way that reminded Rose of her Mom, of Roxy’s videos of _her_ Mom, of what she might have once grown up to become, of whom she wanted to be in some deep way that she knew would never be fulfilled.

        They ate, talking and Rose noticed little details as Jade and Calliope tried to enlist any of the trio in their quest.  The other Rose’s hand gently laid on her Jade’s, the closeness and the smiles and the looks they directed at each other.

        Rose had been, as a Seer, academically aware of possibilities of other timelines, of other Roses and other Jades and other worlds.  A part of her, though, had always thought, always believed that they’d be _different_ , or very much the same.

        It had never been quite as vivid to her, seeing another her in a different sort of love with another Jade, just how different _and_ alike it might be at the same time.

        That another session may have existed, possibly a different timeline, possibly something weirdly same-alike all along, where the Alpha Session had gone differently, gone better, with apparently none of the Batterwitch’s and Lord English’s influence was something she knew intellectually she ought to have expected.  It might even have been the original timeline for it, really.

        She had never really thought that the dreambubbles might possibly contain anybody from such a session.

 

        In the end, only Feferi agreed to go with them, so they might be able to talk to the HorrorTerrors.  It was never an easy task, Rose and Aradia knew, and Rose had warned the others, but they were Prospit Dreamers and the stark, vivid intimate knowledge of the HorrorTerrors was not their birthright but rather the bright sunny prophetic skies of Skaia.

        Aradia had confessed, early, that the broodfester tongues were not among those that tripped over her tongue with any ease.  It was one that caused most trolls’ ears to bleed on hearing, their eyes to weep bloody tears on seeing, their tongues to blister on speaking.

        Rose’s own memories were clearer, her own eyes and ears and tongue undamaged yet with a strange white noise blank when she tried to remember it.  The memories had to be approached sideways and indirectly, the meaning remembered while the words strangely lost.

        It had left its marks upon her, of having been grimdark once and lost, but the tongue itself slept deep within her, not to awaken unless she let herself slip, something she knew she did not want and Jade would never let her do again.

        It was Feferi who knew and could speak the tongue, still, without being lost any deeper to the grimdarkness than she was simply by virtue of being a Derse Dreamer raised by the emissary of HorrorTerrors.

        She was key, even more than Calliope who might inspire the repairs of the weave of Paradox Space so there would be safe places for the resurrected dreambubbles to float, safe from the jagged edges Lord English had left in his wake.  She had, after all, been the one to choose to die when offered the Choice, in order to secure the death of the version of her brother who had opted otherwise.

        Even if they could repair the damage, it would have meant nothing unless they could ask the HorrorTerrors.

        The only thing that might go wrong would be that they would say no.

 

        The thing Rose could remember afterwards, with complete lucidity and clarity, was that they had said no.

        It had been a nightmare, the HorrorTerrors passing them along, passing them up in down out _deeper into_ their tangles, the only clear thing as limbs curled grasped somehow slipped under the skin without going in…

        There were vague reassurances that they would get an answer, they just needed to be asking the right one, and if they were patient then they would get to ask him it her them.

        Pronouns, it seemed, were hard, and nobody understood quite like HorrorTerrors.

        Their voices were not a heroic nor a just death, though, and did not cause dead trolls to die again, so their party was not diminished except by Feferi’s own choice to stay as they were returned.

 

        The answer had come with an attempt to explain that only Aradia seemed to understand, a tangle of Time and Space and spirographs and ideas that seemed just barely and infinitely out of reach.

        There was a sense, though, that it was _necessary_.  That the dreambubbles were, as Aradia had said, merely a temporary thing.

        That their destruction was, in the balance of things, in the infinite perspective, a desirable and good thing.

        Years later, after their return, Rose’s eldest daughter’s eyes turned to her, and she realized she recognized the soul gazing back at her through the jade eyes normally hidden by black bangs, and at that moment she was enlightened.


End file.
